Mrs. Bennet Has Her Say by Jane Juska

now amidst all this disarray and my own preparations for the ball only weeks away I am told that we are to be visited by Mr. Bennet’s cousin, Mr. Collins. It is a visit to be dreaded by all concerned except for young Mr. Collins, who surely intends to lay hands on what he presumes will one day be his. We shall see about that.
    Have you secured your own copy of
Pamela
? If so, then you have also secured a hiding place for it. Secrets are delicious, are they not.
    Affectionately,
MB

Ch. 12

    In Which a Visitor Appears
    Equidem plura transcribo quam credo.
    â€œTruly, I set down more things than I believe.”
    â€”QUINTUS CURTIUS
    The present cannot be depended upon to predict the future. I would come to know my cousin in later years after he had turned into a wrinkly fuss-budget with a lisp and a leer. When he came to us, on his first visit to Longbourn, his hair had not yet receded. His midsection had not been force-fed into prominence. His eyes were free of the spectacles that would identify him (wrongly) as a serious man with religious convictions. He betrayed not even a hint of the toady he would become. Then, at eighteen, Mr. Collins was what one might call, if one was seventeen and female,a looker: tall, slim, with a ruddy complexion and broad shoulders.
    I did indeed stop short at the sight of this hale and hearty young cousin who might someday own and live in and rule the remains of myself and my property. Intolerable. In the meantime, I would continue to do my duty as the progenitor of heirs, thus staving off any presumption by this upstart cousin that might despoil the tranquil future I envisioned for myself and my multitudinous family, among whom there would be a boy. This Collins fellow looked to be a threat. He looked as if he might any minute drive a cart into the drawing room and tack up a sign over the hearth announcing “It’s Mine.” I began to enact the role that I and Mrs. Bennet had created for me.
    â€œMr. Bennet!” my wife cried. “Take heed of the mud you have brought with you onto our carpet! Must I remind you always?”
    â€œGood news, old girl,” I shouted. “We have some mud at last. The ground seems to be softening somewhat; at least, the ice is melting and so we have this! Good, clean mud!” As if noticing Mr. Collins for the first time, I strode toward him, tracking mud across the Aubusson as I did, and held out my hand be-gloved and grimy. “Halloa, young cousin! I remember you as but a lad.” I looked him up and down. “You have changed, my boy, and for the better, I’d say. You were a sorry runt, if memory serves. How goes the health of your parents?” I tore off my gloves. “Please excuse me; these gloves have come to be a part ofme, so often do I find them necessary in my dawn-to-dusk labours. I sometimes forget I once used to be a gentleman.” I sighed loudly. “No longer. I am a farmer, no more nor less than my tenant Tom, who of course steals from me at every turn and must be scolded and threatened almost daily.”
    Old girl? Mrs. Bennet seemed to take umbrage, as if to say that already I was over-acting. “Now, husband,” she said, “leave off your tales of woe. Our young cousin has come to make himself acquainted with the delights of Longbourn.”
    I grumbled something about there being no delights and plumped myself down on the settee next to Mr. Collins, who sat stroking its velvet cover. “So, young sir,” I said, clapping him upon the knee, “what say you to picking up a spade on the morrow to see if the earth has warmed enough for us farmers to begin to work it?”
    So fine a performance was I giving that Mrs. Bennet almost believed it. In truth, I had rarely lifted a spade or any other tool during the whole of my life at Longbourn. I had borrowed Tom’s field gloves that were indeed scarred and worn with hard work, and I had kicked away the ice on the path in